fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2548 ]

[ SECRET POST #2548 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2548 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Because on one hand, I've been in British fandoms for years but it wasn't until a Doctor Who clip that I realized "pants" meant something different in Britain than America - and yet they were both so similar and so common that I've been slightly confused for years yet never enough for it to be cleared up.

So I can understand that some words do need to be changed. (And it's not as if it's one way - the title of the first Avatar series had to be changed, and I'm pretty sure "fanny pack" wouldn't really pass muster for little kids). And it's not because they are so different, but because they are so similar, that sometimes these changes are useful.

Additionally, things are spelled differently and while those kinds of spelling differences existing in the first place is stupid, it doesn't change the fact kids learn their spelling from reading, so I can see why that needs to be changed, too.

That said, I can also agree that remaking things entirely is stupid.

Unfortunately, it's likely to get worse before it gets better, because the whole situation is self-fulfilling prophecy. People think Americans are stupid/need to be coddled, they adjust foreign media to fit these standards, Americans become genuinely sheltered due to lack of exposure, they need some coddling, people adjust more, Americans become less exposed and need coddling more...

It goes on and on. If someone doesn't break the cycle themselves to engage in foreign media directly - something which may seem easy to those of us who are used to it but daunting to those not accustomed to regularly illegally watching and downloading things - then they will become sheltered and then confused by foreign media, whether they like that situation or not.

teehee Fanny Pack and variations of gave child-me and my siblings an endless source of giggles when young. Also poor girl named Fanny in some book.

teehee fanny

Isn't there at least one character in Austen named Fanny?

Yep. Fanny Price is the main character in Mansfield Park, and Fanny Dashwood is a minor antagonist in Sense and Sensibility.

Wait, they had to change the name of the Avatar series? Why?

I believe because "bender" in British English is a derogatory slang for gay men. So it was changed to Avatar: The Legend of Aang.

Do they still call them benders in the show itself?

Did they have to replace every instance of "bender" in the show? It's said pretty frequently, they'd have to redub basically the entire series.

Dammit I really need an answer to this now.

Because in America, the title is "Avatar: The Last Airbender", but "bender" has some unfortunate connotations in Britain, so elsewhere it goes by "Avatar: The Legend of Aang".

I was thinking when I read the original secret that I had read the "Shoes" books in "British" as a child and was okay, so reading the Harry Potter books in "British" should have been fine, but your first paragraph makes a lot of sense. With things like "pants" and "jumper" being similar enough to what an American would use the words for but having different meanings, I could see why it would potentially cause confusion. Especially with children.

wait what is an american pants?

Pants in American means what you wear on your lower half, over your legs and the like. In British English they're called Trousers.

Pants in British English is your undergarments.

I think in Britain "pants" are the equivalent of an American's "underwear", whereas an American's "pants" are the equivalent of a Brit's "trousers".

Trousers.

Spelling definitely threw me off as a kid, not to mention punctuation. I have the British edition of the 5th book, and one thing that confuses me the most is that dialogue quotes are done like this:

'Can you fly?' he asked.

Whereas in America, it goes like this:

"Can you fly?" he asked.

And it especially confused me when dealing with contractions, because then you get things like this:

'Can't you fly?' he asked.

D:

But yes, a lot of minor things like spelling, terminology, etc. threw me off as a kid, and I was a kid who already had a lot of exposure to other versions of English as my parents were immigrants who'd learned Queen's English in school before coming to America. Even knowing that different English-speaking countries spelled things differently, my gut reaction to "colour" was to go "no, there's no 'u'".

I don't remember that in the book I read! Now I totally want to did the books up from the box in the attic and see if they were like that and I'm just not remembering, or whether they changed some of it to "American" and just missed some things. I can see how that would be distracting to have the quotation marks changed. The only British word I remember is "shortsighted". My mother started to tell me what it was and then realized that I was reading a British book and told me it likely meant "nearsighted" in that book instead of what it meant in "American".

I agree that to kids who aren't totally confident in spelling, the minor variations could be confusing as well.

It's one thing to "Americanize" works for adults, but I think I'm totally okay with Americanizing books for kids.

Americanizing a book in terms of terms and spelling, I get. There are very concrete linguistic differences between English dialects. Americanizing content, though, is just ridiculous. -_-

That said, I can see the reason for changing the title, too. "Philosopher" and "Sorcerer" do mean different things in American parlance, and the way Nicholas Flamel is described in the book is very much a sorcerer and very little a philosopher, at least in terms of making the stone. I can understand why everyone is irritated, but from the critical, editorial standpoint, I'd still say it was a good move - or the least-bad one, at any rate.

What content was Americanized? Did I miss something? I thought it was just terms and spelling and stuff.

I agree with that; although, apparently, according to this thread there is such a thing as a "Philosopher's Stone" in myth or whatever already?

The content of the books themselves were not Americanized, just the title. The content of shows like "Skins" and "Being Human", however, were both unnecessarily and stupidly Americanized - the former because so much of what made the show stand out just doesn't apply in America, and the latter because it was not really needed in the first place.

And, that is perhaps part of the point. "Philosopher's Stone", as a phrase, means something in the UK, but it doesn't mean anything in America. As such, potential readers would just be stuck trying to find out what the stone of a philosopher is, but in American English, "philosopher" = someone who thinks a lot, works through moral/ethical/existential problems, etc. If someone is practicing magic, that doesn't make them a philosopher, that makes them a wizard/sorcerer/warlock/etc. A "philosopher's stone" is a rock that belongs to someone who thinks a lot, but a "sorcerer's stone" is something that can be magical.

"Philosopher's stone" is a collocation that you'll find in any good dictionary, whether English or American. It really doesn't have a different meaning in the US.

It's in Merriam-Webster.

Re: It's a negative feedback loop

nyxelestia - 2013-12-25 10:52 (UTC) - Expand

Re: It's a negative feedback loop

(Anonymous) - 2013-12-25 22:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: It's a negative feedback loop

nyxelestia - 2013-12-25 22:27 (UTC) - Expand

No, "Philosopher's Stone" is the thing's NAME.

raspberryrain - 2013-12-26 22:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: No, "Philosopher's Stone" is the thing's NAME.

nyxelestia - 2013-12-27 02:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: No, "Philosopher's Stone" is the thing's NAME.

raspberryrain - 2014-01-01 23:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: No, "Philosopher's Stone" is the thing's NAME.

nyxelestia - 2014-01-02 01:06 (UTC) - Expand

I am (un)lucky enuogh that I can't spell and so I can't noticis the differents. I do pick up slang and culturl things, that make the books better.

that is why the fact that Neville had to set fire to his pants by Peeves so much funnier to me than to my American friend who was sitting next to me when we were reading the book for the first time.

Funny story, when I lived in England, I knew the difference between English Pants and Canadian/American pants, but at one point I told my friend "I like your pants!" and everyone who was around me at the time burst out laughing and then later we were playing truth or dare and I told them to take off their pants and then for about three months after moving to Canada they were trousers and people gave me funny looks but it was all just so embarassing in England that I picked up the habit really quickly.

I can remember reading in a British tabloid magazine about the scandal of some girl caught out without her pants on. I thought "well, of course, she was wearing a skirt". It was ages before I realized what was so shocking about it.

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